1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to telecommunications systems. Specifically, the present invention relates to systems and methods for matching incoming and
or outgoing calls to electronic phonebook entries in a wireless phone or other communications device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless phones are employed in a variety of demanding applications ranging from search and rescue to business applications. Such applications demand feature-rich wireless phones for efficiently placing and receiving incoming and outgoing calls.
As wireless phone technology advances, the demand for more features increases. Existing wireless phones typically include a computer for running software such as phonebook software to improve phone functionality. Much software, currently under development and already developed, requires accurate matching of incoming and outgoing calls to appropriate entries in the electronic phonebook. For example, call record keeping software for tracking incoming calls to or outgoing calls from parties listed in the electronic phonebook and caller identification software for notifying a user when an incoming call matches an entry in the electronic phonebook both require accurate matching of incoming and
or outgoing calls to entries in the phonebook.
Currently, systems and methods for matching incoming or outgoing calls to entries in an electronic phonebook rely on exact matches between dialed numbers or incoming caller identification numbers to corresponding entries in the electronic phonebook. Unfortunately, such methods often fail to accurately match incoming and outgoing calls to appropriate entries in the electronic phonebook. For example, if a user is operating in the 619 area code and dials a seven-digit number, the dialed phone number may not match a corresponding ten-digit entry in the electronic phonebook that includes the 619 area code. Similarly, if a user enters a seven-digit number in the electronic phonebook rather than a ten-digit number, the seven-digit phonebook entry may incorrectly match a received call from a different area code but with similar last seven digits.
Hence, a need exists in the art for a system and method for accurately matching incoming and outgoing calls with corresponding entries in an electronic phonebook that avoids inadvertent errors resulting from mismatched area codes.
The need in the art is addressed by the system for accurately matching a phone call to a corresponding entry in an electronic phonebook of the present invention. In the illustrative embodiment, the inventive adapted for use with a wireless phone and includes a first mechanism for identifying the phone call and providing a phone number in response thereto. A second mechanism determines a home area code associated with the phone. A third mechanism employs the home area code and at least a portion of the phone number to accurately match the phone call to a corresponding entry in the electronic phonebook whether or not entries in the electronic phonebook contain area codes.
In a specific embodiment, the first mechanism includes a mechanism for identifying the phone call as an incoming or outgoing call. A caller identification system identifies incoming calls and provides the phone number in response thereto. Another mechanism stores an outgoing number dialed by the user and provides the outgoing number as the phone number in response thereto.
The area code of the wireless phone is stored in memory. The third mechanism prepends digits based on the area code to the phone number if the phone number is seven digits in length and provides an adjusted number in response thereto. The third mechanism includes another mechanism for adjusting entries in the electronic phonebook that have only seven digits by prepending the digits based on the area code to the seven-digit phonebook entries and providing adjusted entries in response thereto. An additional mechanism compares the adjusted number to entries in the electronic phonebook including the adjusted entries and provides a match signal in response thereto as an output of the third mechanism if the adjusted number matches an entry in the electronic phonebook.
The novel design of the present invention is facilitated by the third mechanism, which eliminates matching errors due to the lack of area code information associated with 7-digit phone numbers in the electronic address book and 7-digit dialed numbers by appending appropriate area code information to the 7-digit numbers prior to comparisons that match the incoming an outgoing numbers to entries in the electronic phonebook.